In Spain in the last 10 years exists a growing concern related to the environmental awareness, specifically in the transport’s world. Too many road works have tried to reduce the impact of the new technologies on the environment with different strategies, such as the use of marginal soils excavated during the construction of the own road (forming part of the embankments).
In the Detailed Design Project of the A-44 Highway of Sierra Nevada, “The Granada Orbital”, sections between Santa Fé and Las Gabias, the marginal soil composed by gypsum excavated from the axis of the road is used in the construction of the nucleus of the embankments always assuring the existence of a capsule composed by seleccionado soil in the upper part of it, laterals and foundations. In addition, a PEAD layer is placed between the upper part of seleccionado soil and the nucleus of marginal soil that contains gypsum between 5 and 20%. The purpose of it is to assure the water tightness to the humidity changes.
The works related to the Detailed Design previously indicated have started a couple of years ago. In this article the issues included in the Project about this form of proceeding and the reality and experiences occurred during the construction works will be deeply described, trying to show how in Spain “environmental works” are widely extended in the Roads World.